The new trend with businesses collecting data has been to trade the data with each other, without the use of money – the result: a win-win situation. Often, the start of new businesses requires information to be gathered, but if the data is expensive, how can new companies afford to pay? For example, Noam Bardin wished to expand his mobile mapping app to South America, but it was too costly a move for him. However, he was able to gain free geographical mapping information – but how? Bardin made a deal with Multispectral, a company with proprietary data, and in exchange he would give access to his data on automobile traffic, speed traps, roadwork, and collisions that his company would collect.
Seemingly, this new trend of data bartering essentially embodies trading data as if it was baseball cards – that is without any finances involved. Doesn’t this sound so simple? Shouldn’t every company that wishes to gain data get involved in data bartering? But I guess the difficulties lie in the fact that both parties must have the data that the other needs, or else a trade will not be beneficial.
“We live in an age where the ability to capture data has never been greater,” – J.P. Rangaswami, chief scientist for Salesforce.com
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In the articles for Class 17: IT and Information Systems, we read about the proliferation of data gathering. Social media especially accrues much data that many companies try to get their hands on.
There is even a market for data swapping called Factual; some fees are required to gain access to this data but you can get discounts if you contribute your own data. This, I thought, is a similar concept to websites where students share notes, past tests, review questions etc. but they have to upload their own to gain access to that of others. These models of data sharing can have profound impact and I see them spreading widely in the near future.
Milian, Mark. “Data Bartering Is Everywhere.” Bloomberg Businessweek Technology. BLOOMBERG L.P, 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-15/data-bartering-is-everywhere>.